My First Seven Years (Plus a Few More)

CHAPTER 20. The Voyage of the Argonauts

When I celebrated my sixteenth birthday, I had already been attending the Brera for some years. I got up every morning at half past five, went racing along the lakeside without drawing breath and, keeping an ear cocked for the train from Luino as it appeared and disappeared in and out of the tunnels, I took part in a daily competition to see which of us would reach the station first. I lost the race only once, because of a mêlée at the finishing line: it was pitch black and I did not notice a gas pipe placed across the road.

I often jumped onto the train when it was already moving: my travelling companions would cheer lustily, and if I managed to get a foot on the running board, they would grab hold of me and pull me into the carriage.

The train normally had five or six coaches. The second-class one was divided into eight-person compartments, while the rest of the compartments were third class, that is, they consisted of the one open space. The young people preferred this one since it allowed us to mix together in a squash of males and females, students, young office-workers and a few factory-hands. They all got on in small groups at various stations until the whole train was crowded.

With a few friends from the Valtravaglia, I took upon myself the role of story-teller, and there were others who sang to the accompaniment of guitars or accordions. At Caldè, a complete brass band would often get on: the two who played the flute and the slide-trombone were studying at the Conservatorio. The upshot was that our coach rejoiced in the nickname of the caravan de ciuch, the drunkards’ caravan.

Every so often I would desert that pandemonium and take refuge in another carriage to get on with some study, but I was not always successful. My companions would come looking for me, and often prevailed on me to tell them at least a couple of tales. At that time, my repertoire was somewhat limited, so to avoid repeating myself, I was obliged to invent more and more new adventures. I cast in a grotesque, ironical light famous historical enterprises, like the story of Garibaldi and the Thousand, when the boat remained moored at Quarto because three members of the expedition were missing. If we do not reach the full complement, we can’t depart, was the nervous comment of General Giuseppe Garibaldi, because we can’t really call it The Expedition of the Nine Hundred and Ninety-Seven. They decide to seize the first people who come along: two drunks, one called Nino Bixio and the other Santorre di Santarosa, and finally a man who had just escaped from the prison in Genoa.

It was in the same random way that there, in the third-class coach, other impossible tales, all pulled inside out, concerning Christopher Columbus, Ulysses and other epic heroes were conceived.

The Odyssey, in particular, became for me an inexhaustible storehouse of satirical, comic motifs. There was the dilemma of Ulysses, desperate to put to sea and get back home, and Poseidon on the look-out for him, peeping out from underwater in the belly of a whale. Poor aquatic pachyderm, forced to live open-mouthed, continually rocked by vomiting fits!

Right on cue, a storm rises and Ulysses is tossed onto another shore. There he is in the land of the Phaeacians, then in the arms of Nausicaa. When he gets on his way again, Poseidon pounds the calm sea with his hands, causing the waves to rise higher than the peak of Musadino. The ship breaks apart and this time the hero is thrown ashore on Aeaea, this time into the arms of Circe. He allows himself to be overwhelmed by passion and to get up to all manner of escapades with the greedy enchantress. His companions, meantime, transformed into filthy pigs, are bored and find their only enjoyment in watching Ulysses make a fool of himself with all his tawdry cavortings with that sow of a witch, Circe.

But it’s clear that Ulysses had never had the slightest intention of returning home. He was more than happy with his round of non-stop affairs. The idea of going back to stony Ithaca, to a wife who spent every moment of her time weaving cloth, and to a flee-ridden dog that was always between his feet did not attract him one little bit.

The truth of it was that it was he who went in search of storms to hold him back, so much so that before setting off from a coast, he would go out of his way to make sure that the god of the sea was wide awake and in a bad temper with him. Indeed, when he realises that Poseidon is getting fed up with persecuting him, what does he do? He deliberately lands on the island of the Cyclops and upsets Polyphemus, who just happens to be Poseidon’s son, gets him drunk and sticks a flaming stake into his one eye. What a swine he was, this Ulysses! You could have wagered that the boy’s father, god of the depths, was bound to unleash every giant wave he could. But whichever way you look at it, is it conceivable that a skilled master seaman like Ulysses would have taken ten years to get away from the coasts of Sicily?

Ah yes, because, look at it this way, that was the island he was always manoeuvring around. He sailed close to every cliff, went up every inlet thereabouts and perhaps touched Tunisia, but only briefly.

When he returned to Ithaca it was only by accident. He was convinced he was on Zacynthus! ‘Damnation, here I am back home!’ To avoid being recognised, he dressed up as a tramp, but the mongrel went and recognised him, so he gave him a such a kick that he killed him. ‘Papa, Papa!’ exclaimed Telemachus, all sure of himself. Only Ulysses could dispatch a dog with one kick like that. ‘Yes, it’s me, but not a word to your mother!’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t trust her, she’s got those suitors pressing her to get her into bed with them.’

‘But Papa, she hasn’t done it with any of them.’

‘Well, you never can tell. Can you swear on the Bible?’

‘Please, Papa, don’t bring politics into it.’

No sooner said than done. Ulysses bends his bow and skewers all those bastards of suitors. Only then does his wife recognise him. ‘Welcome home, my husband.’ Hugs and kisses. Groans and languid sighs.

In no time it’s dawn.

‘Very sorry, but I’ve got to go!’

‘Already? Did you only come for a change of underwear?’

‘I’m coming too, father.’

‘OK, but get a move on, because the ship is ready and waiting, and the wind is in the right direction. Bye, bye, my wife. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon. In about twenty years.’

End of story.

* * *

As is obvious, I am only giving an outline of those stories I performed on the train journey to Milan. Every time I did them, I put in fresh twists, or improvised new vocal or mime acts. Often I was obliged to climb up on the bench in the centre of the carriage so that everyone could follow me. In short, the carriage of the Luino-Gallarate-Milan (Porta Garibaldi station) express was for years my stage, with stalls invariably sold-out and appreciative!

The spectators were not only young men and women, but also often included more mature, less regular travellers. Some, after a while, went away annoyed or displeased over certain lines they considered inappropriate, but for the most part the casual listeners who came along were unexpectedly enthusiastic. Among them was one singular, middle-aged gentleman who at times exploded in raucous, infectious laughter. The gentleman was Professor Civolla, historian and anthropologist of the University of Milan, to whom I referred earlier. One evening, returning home on my own later than usual, I found him alone in a compartment. He invited me to sit beside him and started firing questions at me. He knew I was studying at the Brera, and that I had had the finest fabulatori of the Valtravaglia as masters (apart from anything else, he himself lived in Porto), but he wondered what sources I had been drawing on for some of the grotesque motifs I had adopted to turn the original form of the situations I narrated upside down.

‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I have only applied the parodying techniques I learned from the story-tellers in Porto when they wanted to trip people up.’

‘No, no,’ he insisted, ‘I know these techniques too, I’ve grown up with them. I’m talking about the underlying paradoxes.’

I looked at him in some embarrassment, then admitted I had not understood the question. ‘Excuse me, professor, what do you mean by underlying paradoxes?’

‘They are the ones taken from ancient historical tradition … do you know Lucian of Samosata?’

‘No, who is he?’

‘An extraordinary poet from the second century, Greek obviously, the satirical author who brought the technique of paradox to its highest perfection. He would take an almost sacred story and toss it around a bit. Achilles, you’re telling me he was a generous-hearted hero? Anything but; he was a hysterical, egocentric, mad criminal! A right bastard who was engaged to Iphigenia, the gentle daughter of Agamemnon, and then when the oracle at Delphi intoned: “Achaeans, if you want to conquer Troy you must slaughter like a goat the virgin beloved of Achilles”, what does Achilles, son of Peleus, do? He takes Iphigenia by the arm and, as though it doesn’t matter a jot to him, escorts her to the sacred tree under which she is to be sacrificed!’

And he went on to tell me about Ulysses betraying his friend Philoctetes who had been bitten in the thigh by a poisonous snake. Poor Philoctetes with his injured leg turning gangrenous was convinced by the honest Ulysses to disembark at Lemnos, a desert island. He then abandons him like a marooned sailor, leaving him to his own devices and telling him to get with it! But, not long afterwards, Ulysses is informed by the oracle that without the infallible bow in the possession of that gangrenous, abandoned soul, the Achaeans will never manage to get the better of the Trojans. Countermand: back to square one. Ulysses returns to the island, dressed as a travelling merchant, tricks Philoctetes into giving up the bow and goes on his way.

In this way, one after the other, the professor drew me portraits of a series of heroes, queens, gods and goddesses whom at school they had given us as role-models, but who, once the commonplaces of rhetoric had been turned on their head, were made to appear, some more than others, like a band of swindlers, hypocrites and opportunists.

I was literally fascinated by Civolla’s conversation. We reached our destination in no time but we were so engrossed by what we were saying, I in asking questions and he in recounting, that we almost missed our stop. As we said good night to each other, we promised to meet again a few days later. It was a Tuesday and promptly on Thursday I presented myself at his home in the Antico Cambio Palace. The professor lived in the attic flat, immediately under the roof, in a large single room which covered the entire area of the palace. There were tables piled high with papers and books, a book case which covered a whole wall, and four glass doors inset in arches which opened onto a big balcony. Without more ado, he let me see one of his most recent discoveries, the reproduction of a kind of map from the fifth century AD which showed the mythical voyage of the Argonauts. I felt myself drowning in a well of ignorance. Who were these Argonauts? What had they got up to, where were they from, where were they going?

The greatest talent of a teacher, according to Pliny the Elder, was never to let his own knowledge overburden the pupil’s less well-stocked brain, and this was beyond all question one of Professor Civolla’s gifts. As he showed me the map, he called my attention to how it was designed without regard for the actual alignment of the coasts and rivers. Everything was highly approximate. ‘Look, the position of Corinth is marked here, which is where the Argonauts are supposed to have set off from some four thousand odd years ago. And here is Pagasae, the port and shipyard where, according to the myth, the ship Argo, which gives us the name Argonaut, was constructed. The bards of this epic predated the tales of the Iliad and the Odyssey by some considerable time. On the expedition, as you will certainly know, there was Jason in the role of captain, and, just to jolly things along, Hercules, who after one or two labours was taking a short vacation, the two Dioscuri, Theseus and a great number of other heroes employed to provide a bit of ballast. There was also Orpheus, the great musician and well-known enchanter of the Sirens.

‘The expedition was, as usual, arranged for purposes of robbery and piracy. The idea was to reach Colchis on the Black Sea, where, under the protection of a dragon, the Golden Fleece was to be found. The Golden Fleece was the woollen coat of a ram which was itself golden, and was endowed with extraordinary powers. Here’s an interesting detail: the ship had been constructed with timber gifted by Athena, so at the launch the heroes noticed that the vessel could speak. A deep voice emanated from the head of an ox on the prow giving indications of the route to be followed or of impending storms and, when the ship was becalmed, it had a repertoire of beguiling tales.

‘The expedition set off towards the Dardanelles, through the Strait of Bosphorus and at last arrived at the Black Sea, obviously after having overcome many problems en route: hostile populations, cliffs and, jutting out of the sea, rocks which could be pushed close together by the winds.

‘When they landed at Colchis, the king ordered Jason to undertake a series of very severe tests, like yoking to the plough two savage, fire-breathing oxen which lashed out ferociously with their brazen hooves. Luckily for Jason, the king’s young daughter, Medea, herself endowed with great intelligence and magic powers, fell in love with him and, even if it meant betraying her father, did all she could to help him in all his trials, including the one requiring him to destroy an army of warriors born from sowing the teeth of a dragon, no less, in the ground. And all this without as much as a coffee break.

‘Second episode: Medea, with the collaboration of Orpheus, puts the dragon to sleep long enough to allow the Argonauts to snatch the Golden Fleece without too much trouble. Medea, now deeply in love with Jason, decides to follow him. The hero promises her that the moment they reach a peaceful, safe place, he will take her as his bride. The king, the father of the young enchantress, goes absolutely wild at the news. Those bastards from Achaea have pilfered his fleece, and now they’re off with the daughter whom he had promised to a neighbouring king. In a rage, he gives chase to the thieves’ ship.

‘So as to foil her father who, with his ships packed with warriors, was catching up on the Argonauts, Medea executes an act of unthinkable ferocity: she slaughters her younger brother whom she had brought along with her. She tears him to pieces and scatters his severed limbs in the fields along the coast. In despair, the king moors at the shore and stops to search, with the help of his men, for the fragments of his son’s body. This horrendous stratagem gives the Achaeans the advantage and allows them to reach the Straits of the Bosphorus, but alas! the opening is blocked by another of the king’s fleets which had gone ahead. Once again they are saved by Medea who shows Jason a different escape route, up the mouth of the Danube which opens right in front of them.’

As he spoke, the professor showed me on the Byzantine map the fugitives’ only possible route. ‘Hercules did not agree: “If we go this way, we will have to proceed to the land of the Germans, then across a great chain of mountains with the ship on our backs.” “You’ve got to choose: either extend the journey or accelerate death!” replies Medea. “The girl’s right,” comments the ox’s skull on the prow, “take it or leave it.”’

‘After a few months, raiding and slaughtering here and there to ensure their own survival, they reach the sources of the Danube. With the ship on their backs and labouring like beasts, they come out on the Rhine, and from there, sailing for several moons against the current, they enter Lake Constance. More moons. They curse their way across the Alps, still with their vessel on their backs. They finally reach Italy and come down into Lake Maggiore.’

I stood there with my mouth hanging open. My eyes, too, were wide open.

‘Incredible! The Argonauts arriving here in our land! OK, it’s a myth, but we’re not going to find it’s merely nonsense, are we?’

‘Certainly, you can expect anything with myths, but this adventure was recounted by at least three separate bards, several centuries apart from one another, and they were all in agreement on the route of the voyage. Look here, I’ve got another two maps. Compare them with the first. The red line which marks the journey goes in the same direction on all three. Look, this mark shows the spot where the ship berths.’

‘But it’s on our shores! This must be the mouth of the Tresa and here, this inlet…’

‘You’re right. It is our coastline. The temple of the oracle used to be in the port of the Valtravaglia.’

‘We used to have an oracle here?’

‘And what’s so odd about that? Every ancient civilisation had at least a couple. In our lands, in these valleys, we had the Celts, or more exactly the Senones, in other words the primordial Celtic race.’

‘All right, so what did these Argonauts have to do with this oracle?’

‘They had to perform a sacrificial rite inside the temple which was hewn out at the foot of the waterfall, in order to purge themselves of all the crimes and pillage carried out in Colchis and on the rest of the voyage. Medea, in particular, had to purify herself, free herself of the ignominy of having killed her brother and dispersed his limbs. She knew that the commission of that crime would cause her dreadful labour pains. Every one of the Argonauts had to be present at that birth: Medea’s pain would liberate their consciences too. As is always the case, it is the woman who does the purgation for everyone.’

‘The daughter of the king of Colchis is laid out on the temple floor, and then her sufferings begin. Medea is seized by terrible contractions. Spasms follow hard one after the other, causing her face to be deformed by pain. The unborn child screams from inside his mother’s womb. At first, they are meaningless screeches, but gradually they are transformed into a series of curses of unthinkable ferocity: it is the voice of the oracle speaking through the cries of the child. The Argonauts listen to the list of all their misdeeds … the body of Medea has become almost transparent and inside her womb the child thrashes about and continues to scream insults and threats. The heroes bend down until their faces are level with the floor: soaked with sweat, they weep. The labour is interminable … at last the son of Jason and Medea is born, the very child whom, not long afterwards, his mother will slaughter to take her revenge!’

At the conclusion of the story, I too felt damp with sweat and it was with difficulty that I asked: ‘Is it from that awful birth that our valley takes its name?’

‘Indeed,’ concluded the professor. ‘Valle del Travaglio, the Valley of Labour, nowadays Valtravaglia. After Medea’s labour pains.’

‘Incredible. I thought it referred to the labours of work.’

‘Perhaps that is the correct origin. In fact it is as well never to place undue trust in etymologies which are overloaded with mystic tragedy!’

‘In any case, whether it’s a question of a reliable event or of some fantasy, the whole epic is a wonderful tale. It’s strange that Homer didn’t grab it for himself.’

‘In that case, you take full advantage and reinvent it at once! Hurry up because the ancients always return, and they claim everything back, including your newest fantasies!’